


The Other Side of Time

by ImBackBoi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Because we can't throw someone into the distant future and expect everyone to still be alive can we?, Blue and Red Paladins that can't get along no matter who they are, F/M, Shiro and Allura are like bunnies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21981295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImBackBoi/pseuds/ImBackBoi
Summary: Lance enters the wormhole and comes out 100 years into the future. Some things have changed for the better, some for the worse.Getting home is going to be one hell of a ride.
Relationships: Lance and EvErYbOdY, Lance and future Paladin's, Shiro/Allura
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This used to be on FF.Net, then I went insane and deleted everything. Now I'm putting it here. I'll probably put Darth Lance up here, too.

High above the planet Bolatan, the Blue Lion orbited. It was a serene, cool colored pastel ocean planet. It would have been soothing if Lance hadn't been on the com with Hunk -

"It's more of a minor systems failure," the Blue Paladin squinted at the flashing lights, "No, systems alert? And since I have no idea how to read ancient Altaen, as certain peoples have yet to teach us, I also have no clue what it says-"

The pressure on his mind was certain though.

"-Blue says it's important though."

_"You can talk to Blue?"_

Lance rolled his eyes.

"Same way you can, buddy, same way you can."

" _...Yea,"_ Hunk laughed awkwardly, " _Right."_

"Hunk," Lance leaned towards the video feed, "Buddy. _Pal._ Amigo! Does good ol' Sunshine _speak_ to you?"

" _Uhh..._ " the Blue Paladin jittered with anticipation - Hunk was a terrible liar. He had almost as many tells as Keith! " _You can't tell anyone okay?"_

"Okay! Okay!"

" _I'm serious Lance, I don't want to make anyone jealous or feel bad about their connection to their lion or anything,_ " Lance imagined the sheepish look that was probably on his friends face at that very moment, " _It's not that big a deal."_

"B-S!" He through his hands in the air, "Hunk that's _amazing! You're_ amazing! Blue agrees with me,"- she confirmed with a resounding purr -"We think what you guys have is amazing and you know what? A little competition never hurt Keith anways. Now tell us all about it!"

And Hunk did while Lance continued to fiddle with the output screens and controls surrounding the flashing light with the unreadable tag. He managed to pull up a counter - at least that's what it looked like; the numbers looked similar to numbers he'd seen on the Castle-ship. Blue was an ancient beautiful beast, so maybe the numbers were from the ancient Altaen dialect? Made sense to him, and why wouldn't it, considering everything else was in Ancient Altean anyways.

Which made him wonder why Allura was being so stingy about helping them learn anything useful _such_ as Altean. Even just how to read it! He didn't need conversational Altean to speak with Blue, but he did need reading fluency to understand all the displays. Besides, that translating program they came up with was pretty spotty sometimes.

_"-and then all of a sudden, I hear this deep voice in my head that sounded like an earthquake but felt like sunshine-_ " Lance grinned, _"-that said, 'Mine', and I was like 'Woah!', and that's how that_ _came about."_

"That's awesome, dude. Does he say-"

" _She."_

"- _she_ say anything else?"

" _Umm, it's pretty rudimentary, you know? Like a child learning to speak. Names. Colors. No."_

Lance cackled.

"No?!" he gasped, "She told you know? How did you manage that?"

Hunk coughed.

" _I think that's a story for another time,"_ he sounded sheepish, " _I've finished the diagnostic on this side. Computers says there's nothing wrong with Blue. All systems go."_

"Sweet, thanks Hunk," Lance frowned at the glowing screen. He really didn't like the look of this count down. The light had been flashing the entire time he'd been in this rinky-dink back water system, but had the counter been active the entire time, or had it started recently? He was definitely running this by their resident genius' once he got home.

"We're going to have a little chat once we get back."

Hunk laughed.

_"I guess. Hey listen, I gotta go. It's almost time for my round of training with Space Dad. And then I've also got a new recipe I want to try for dinner."_

"Cool, have fun getting beat up. Tell people I say 'hi,' and let Allura know I'll be available as soon as I get back."

_"You're terrible. I'm not telling her anything."_

"Party pooper."

They laughed, said their goodbyes, and then Lance and Blue were alone again. He enjoyed the comfortable companionship that came along side of being alone with his Lion.  
At the castle, he was never truly alone and he normally didn't mind. Lance was always with one of the others either training, trying to convince them that a little bit of play wasn't going to kill anyone (Keith, Shiro, Allura), cleaning (Coran), chillin' (Hunk), or teasing (mostly Pidge, sometimes Keith). So, maybe he suffered a little bit from monophobia, but it wasn't like it controlled him or anything. He didn't break out in a cold sweat in an empty room and he sure as hell wouldn't have been able to pilot Blue (let alone anything else) if it _had_ been crippling.

It was also harder to hear Blue in his head when they were there; she was muffled, as if they were speaking through water and could barely understand the other. It was as if there was another, more prodigious presence getting in the way.

"Maybe it's the castle?"

Blue purred.

"You think so, too? I mean, it _is_ well over ten-thousand years old, and those crystals do come from a living creature. Really wouldn't surprise me to discover the castle developed some kind of... personality in that amount of time - Like hogwarts!" the teen chuckled, shrugged his shoulders and leaned back in his chair, "And it's kind of like a person in it's own right. The castle is the body, the crystal it's heart or soul, right? And the people, it's blood. On earth, it's not unheard of to assume that a house where people have lived in for a long time, or where a lot of people have lived at once, has I dunno, gained a presence?"

More purring.

"Hey, when we get back, let's try talking to it!" Lance was excited now, "You know, after I'm done grilling Hunk about his 'no' story. I mean, come on! There can't _not_ be a story there."

Agreement.

"I'm so happy for him and Sunshine," he went on, "Hunk never got a whole lot of praise, you know? My family is huge, like, enormous, but it's always just been him and his parents and they used to work a lot to make ends meet, you know? It was hard for them at first. Not that they didn't love him or neglect him or anything."  
Lance was quiet a moment, "Then one day I met this chubby shy kid and bam! BFF's for life. Had a panic attack the first time he slept over and woke dog-piled by a million little kids. Man! That was scary."

He looked out of Blue's eyes.

"I'm glad he's out here with me."

Space, the final frontier, the vast expanse of empty-ness freckled with the light of millions of stars, the light of billions of tiny lives, stared back at Lance. It was a heavy weight that sat on his shoulders. All of their shoulders.

"We can't forget the small stuff, you know? The everyday stuff. That's why I'm glad Hunk is with me, he makes me smile - he makes everyone smile," Lance shut his eyes against the cold and the dark of space and tried to think of his family, of the heat of sand beneath his feet, hot salty breezes, and the swell of the ocean, of crab claws and Mama's migas.  
He imagined surfing with Blue. Balancing on her back as they sliced through the water.

Blue's laugh felt like bubbles and rain.

An instrument beeped.

"Well, we've got a couple of hours to kill before we have to get back,” Lance leaned back and settled in for a few more hours of drifting around the ocean planet while the scanners did their job. He'd argued and pleaded to be allowed to scout Bolatan, "maybe we'll find something useful? Because I'm pretty sure there's no Galra presence here. Hey, you think they'll notice if we went for a dive?”

Blue sent him an image of them surfing.

He laughed.

Hours passed. It was time to go. The beeping had long since passed out of mind. Had he been paying attention instead using the time to bond with Blue (arguably more important to him over a sensor he couldn't read), Lance would have noticed the countdown roll over several times with inconsistent timing and speed.

“Last one through is a rotten egg!” Lance crowed.

Blue sent back a series of images that showed her preening while her pilot was covered in mud.

Thrusters flared to life. Lance guided the magical robot lion towards the wormhole recently opened near the asteroid belt close to the sun. He didn't notice the flashing light get faster.

Blue sped up.

Lance whooped as they were about to enter the wormhole-

-the light flashed red-

-alarms screeched-

"What the-?"

Everything vanished in a flash of light.

...

The Blue Lion appeared and the wormhole flickered shut.

"Ah, there she is now," Coran cheered, "all lions present and accounted for."

A tidal wave of relief flooded through Shiro.

"That's good," he sighed and peered out the window, "is everything okay?"

"Of course everything's okay. Shipshape as always, thanks for asking, though Shiro-"

"No - look!" he pointed at Blue, there was a notable lack of Lance's playful flying, "She's not moving."

"Oh my," Coran pushed a button, "Paladin, report. Lance, are you in there?"

"Lance!"

" _Lance!"_

Ice froze Shiro's veins. He slapped his communicator,

"Paladins to your lions!" he snapped, "Now!"

The next thirty minutes passed in such a blur, Shiro would never be able to recal putting on his armor or getting to his lion, only the lifeless eyes of the blue lion as they approached.

" _Lance, buddy, compadre-"_ Shiro could hear the wobble in Hunk's voice and could visualize the tears that were most likely pouring down his face in his mind's eye, " _-You gotta wake up. Talk to me, man. Talk to me-"_

_"Sensors aren't picking up anything-"_ Pidge whispered.

_"At all?"_ Keith.

_"Nothing."_

_"Quiznak."_

The yellow lion, came gently to a stop in front of Blue and opened it's mouth. Hunk floated out and used his jet pack to cross the expanse between the two lions.

"Be careful, Hunk."

_"It's going to be okay, Blue,"_ Hunk ignored him. Maybe Hunk didn't even hear him at all, _"I can help, please let me in."_ He placed his hands on the enormous metal nose and then pressed his helmet between them, _"Please."_

In that special place where Kuroneko resided in his mind, the lion crooned sadly. It thrummed in the heartfelt way of someone comforting another, and Shiro knew the lions were talking to Blue.

_"Please,"_ Hunk tried again.

Blue finally aquiesed and opened up. Hunk flew in and a minute later, there was a sob over the com, and Shiro felt his heart shatter.

Sunshine roared in anguish.

Lance was gone.

...

Red. Green. Gold.

Blinding light.

Freezing cold.

Infinite darkness.

Lance couldn't move.

" _Who the quiznak is this guy?"_

_"Why's he wearing paladin armor? Where's his ship?"_ Panic, _“We should contact the castle. Verify the blue paladin is fine.”_

He could hear, apparently. Also - _RIGHT HERE!_

_"Maybe he's going to replace the human-"_

_"Do not speak like that, Princeling."_

_"It was a joke!"_

_"It did not sound like one."_

_"Really? Now is not the time to be arguing,"_ said the first guy, _"Let's just pick him up and get back alright? We can find out who he is later, but right now we're on a schedule and we need to - frek_!"

_"They found us - I'll head them off-!"_

_"No! You idiot-!"_ exploded the first guy, _"Stay near the carrier! Kirit - pick up the guy and lets get out of here!"_

_"Fine!"_

_"Attention Zerbian carrier, we are about to come under attack, heed your course and -"_

Lance stopped paying attention as he felt a tug on his body. He dropped abruptly, hit a hard surface with a pained grunt, and still couldn't see. _But hey, at least I can stil feel, right?_

_Right?_

_Blue?_

His heart tightened. His breath caught.

_"Blue,_ " Lance whimpered, feeling nothing but emptyness as he stretched his mind - " _Blue."_

There was a keening sound -

" _I believe he's awake,"_ rumbled the second voice, _"He's calling for blue."_

Lance blinked. Hot tears poured down his cheeks.

There was a violent inhale.

" _The lost paladin,"_ whispered the third voice, " _maybe we found the lost paladin!"_

_"Whatever, we can figure it out later - we have to go now!"_

_"Hong on back there,"_ shouted the second voice, _"it's going to get a bit rough."_

There was a shudder and Lance felt himself get flung into a wall of some sort. He laughed. There was a soft press against his mind and his laugh turned into a sob.

" _Don't break the lost paladin!"_

_"Shut up, princeling!"_

_"Don't call me princeling!"_

_"Focus!"_

Soon the ride settled down and Lance began to regain his sight. At first things were blindingly bright, which then bleed into impressionist colors, that then began to blur into shapes and his first real test of vision was a large figure in a white and yellow.

"Hunk?" he croaked.

'Hunk' squatted next to him and took off his helmet.

"Sorry," the Galra said, "My name is Kirit."

His vision tunneled and faded to gray.

"Quiznak."

Then it all went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not a dream Lance.

_It was a dream._

_That much he knew._

_His body spun. Spiraled through the whiteness, armor barely protecting him from the sub-arctic temperatures._

_Blue was gone._

_Gone._

_Blue._

_The light was too much. It was blinding him. Burning his retina's. Searing his brain._

_Blue? What happened to Blue?_

_Where was Blue?_

_Pressure._

_It was familiar. Welcoming. He was missed._

_Where was he?_

_Still spinning, that's where. Actually, that didn't make any sense._

There was a _fwoosh_ and the rush of air. Lance opened his eyes-

There were people! Everywhere! They were _Alteans!_ Busy doing – stuff? He blinked and stumbled out of the cryopod (he recognized that thing now, it always gave him funny dreams – or maybe he was still in one. Who knew?). He yawned. People stumbling out of cryopods must have been a pretty common sight for these people because they didn't even bat an eye at him and his pj's-

Wait.

Just.

A.

Tick.

" _Who are you people!"_ Lance shrieked, " _Where the quiznak is my lion!"_

Everyone froze, and just as quickly exploded into a flurry of excitement and motion.

"He's awake!"

"Holy quiznak!

"Get the queen!"

"We've been waiting for ages!"

"How are you feeling?"

"Look at his cute little ears!"

"Do you feel faint?"

“Oh, my gosh, they're so nubby and round!”

"Nausea? Headache?"

Hands touched him. Scanners beeped. Lance was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed.

"Really? Stop touching me - I'm fine!" he snapped, waving his hands at the Altaens as another one waved a scanner in his face and some reached out to touch his ears – he dodged, "For real! Like, cut it out! Where's Hunk? _Hunk_! _HUNK! Shiro! Somebody!"_

"His heartrate is elevated! Something's wrong-!"

"Make way!" Someone shouted, "Comin' through-"

"You- you're not allowed to be here- stop him - wait - your majesty, _please!"_

Lance looked up in time to get swept up by an alien that looked an awful lot like the male version of Nyma and a lighter skinned Altaen man with strawberry blond hair while another Altaen man (dark with blackhair) shooed everyone out of the way.

"-Thank you so much, but we'll take it from here," he was saying as Lance was dragged away, "You all did such an excellent job taking care of him. Seriously! I'm going to talk to the queen about how you guys did such a great job-!"

And then Lance was being dragged out of the dreaded cryopod chamber, hauled along by unfamiliar aliens down familiar, yet different, hallways and finally ended in a room that he'd been in once before.

Keith's room.

The door slid shut behind them.

"Uh, hey guys, thanks for the save and all but could you tell me what holy _quiznak_ is going on-!"

The two men - he could use that term right? As an all encompassing gender grouping for males, right? Right? - shared a glance.

"We'll wait for the rest of the team first," said the pale Altaen, "but for now, my name is Noe, and this is Jax. He's a Ruban."

Lance nodded just as the door slid open and two more entered. The teenager shrieked again,

"There is a Galra on the castle-ship!"

They all cringed. The Galra sighed and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms.

"Get off my wall, hairball!" snapped the dark haired Altaen, smoozing personality gone in a flash.

"Quiet, princeling."

"Whaaaat?"

Noe rubbed his eyes,

"Where's Ilsa?"

"She's out," rumbled the Galra, "Mission. Be back later."

"Okay," Noe grunted, "Why doesn't anyone ever communicate?"

"We communicate," defended Jax, "Just not very well."

Lance sat down and giggled.

"Anyways!" Noe grunted, "Hansom, lock the door-"

"Can someone _please_ tell me what's going on now?" Lance looked around, "Seriously, the only Altaen royalty I know is Allura and she doesn't look like that!" He pointed wildly at the offended personage of Prince Hansom (who was standing there, hand on his chest 'who me?' look on his face – and maybe he did look a tiny bit familiar. Must be the skin tone), "Where's my team? Where's my lion? _What happened? Why is he here? Where the quiznak did all you people come from?"_

"I can answer those," Jax interupted, large indigo eyes intent upon the blue paladin, "Your team is about onehundred thebes in the past. The Blue lion is currently on a mission about two systems away from our current location. You got sucked into the future, and he's here because he's the Yellow Paladin. T _hose people_ came from some super secret and secluded Altaen sanctuary. They also suck.”

“ _What?”_

“Jax.”

“ _You_ suck, Ruban,” snapped the dark haired Altean.

"Yes, yes," the Galra sighed, "and I am here because I am the Yellow Paladin. My name is Kirit, and you're welcome for pulling you out of the vaccuum and essentially making sure you were still alive after being in space like that."

Lance's jaw dropped.

"Prince Hansom is the Red Paladin, Jax is the Green," Noe ignored the petty glares, "I'm the Black and Ilsa is the Blue, but she's not here right now, because she's on a mission and _no one told me about it."_

"You've been gone a long time," the prince turned up his nose and began to ignore his other team mates in favor of turning a laser-like focus on Lance, "I know it's a lot to take in, and that things have changed dramatically since you've been gone, some for the better, some for the worse-"

"- a lot for the worse," Jax muttered. Kirit glared at him,

"There's been good, too."

"I know it seems like we're dropping a huge bombshell on you," Noe went on calmly, looking Lance in the eyes, "but we want you to understand that we're here for you and that we're going to do everything in our power to get you back to when you belong."

"Why?" Lance croaked, then cleared his throat, "How?"

"We're not sure yet." Jax shrugged and looked at his three fingered hands. He was more of a dark buttery color than what Lance remember Nyma being (creamy, like a puff), "We have two Olkarians, myself, Slav and some apprentices we can get to work on it. Currently, we don't understand how you got here or what happened yet, just that it _has_ happened. It's been established that you're not a clone, though, so there's that."

Lance nodded, a bit dazed. Yes. That. Glad he was himself.

"It would help if you could tell us what you remember last," continued the alien. Lance waited for him to continue speaking, then realized that it was himself who was supposed to answer.

"Uhh," he said smartly, brow furrowed, "Um, the last thing I remember is getting ready to go on a scouting mission in Blue, after that it's pretty fuzzy. I don't really remember anything else," he nodded at the galra, "Sorry."

"You're forgiven," Kirit waved magnanamously with his claws, ending in a tiny flourish.

"I suppose some short term memory loss should be expected after such an event. Being yanked from your lion and thrown through time and space was probably an extremely traumatic event..." Jax started mumbling to himself, and the other's rolled their eyes. Lance felt himself start to relax. The Ruban talking to himself must have been a thing. Hansom was bickering with Kirit again, and Noe was watching amusedly. It was obvious they were giving him time to recover himself.  
  
Tears pricked his eyes. His friends - his space family - were gone. A hundred years later? He didn't have to ask the obvious. If Zarkon hadn't killed them, then time probably had. He dug his palms into his eyes and shuddered. There's no way even Pidge, the youngest of their human group was still alive. How come Pidge couldn't get thrown into the future. With her super-smarts, she probably could have herself home in no time!

“This is all just a terrible dream,” Lance whispered to himself, “You're dreaming, and when you wake up- _OW! Did you just pinch me?!”_

Kirit pulled his hand back with an amused grin that looked utterly out of place on his purple fuzzy face.

“Might have. Can't have you going into shock, can we?”

“ _So you pinched me?_ ” Lance demanded, rubbing his arm.

“Worked on our Blue Paladin,” shrugged the Galra nonchalantly as he settled back against the wall again. Lance just glared.

“Maybe we should let you have some time to yourself now,” Noe suggested, “Before Her Majesty hunts you down. Your room is actually still your room, so if you wish to spend some time alone to gain control over yourself, now is the time to do it.”

“Her Majesty?”

“Yes, Queen Allura,” Lance blinked back sudden tears – if Allura was still alive, maybe Coran was, too? Allura was ancient, but Coran was older. Surely a measly 100 years wouldn't have done him in so soon. “She's not often on board the Castle of Lions anymore and her time here is severely limited, so it's quite fortuitous for her that you were found when you were,” Noe's brow furrowed, “Or something like that.”

“Actually, it was better for him that we found him when we did,” Jax interrupted, done muttering to himself, “You were almost out of air and hypothermia had started setting in.”

“Oh.”

Lance was beginning to feel a bit dazed. A thought occurred to him.

“Wait, does that make you her son?” he asked the dark Altean. The Red Paladin preened a bit.

“I shall accept that compliment, however, she is my father's mother.”

“Oh, Allura's your grandmother.” Somehow, even the thought of Allura being with _anyone_ was frightening.

She had _kids._

She had _grandkids!_

“Yes, I believe that is your human word for it.”

“One hundred years,” he murmured, staring at his hands, “Allura has family, all my friends are dead, Zarkon still hasn't been defeated, and apparently life as I knew it has gotten much worse.”

The four future Paladin's looked above the old Blue Paladin's head. Noe shook his head, Kirit rolled his eyes, Hansom sighed, and Jax merely shrugged.

Noe rested a hand on the teenagers shoulder.

“I will not say that I am sorry for your loss,” he said softly, “because we are going to send you home as soon as we are able and then, ancestors willing, this future may be somewhat averted.”

The Black Paladin's words echoed strangely in Lance's heart as the future Paladin's escorted him to his room and left him alone.

...

Lance dozed.

He dreamed he was in a castle full of Allura's. Allura's everywhere! The biggest Allura sat on her throne and was surrounded by a thin, dark purple purple aura. A staff was in her hand, tip sparking like a fairy wand and streaming brilliant ribbons of blue, white, and pink. Every now and then she would wave it and laugh like a bad anime character, ' _OHOHOHO!',_ as she bossed the other Allura's around.  
  
Most of the other Allura's were not as big as she was. Many of them were smaller than Pidge, but some ranged up to Keith's size. They tooled around the castle, jostling each other, yoinking their ears, pulling hair and occasionally shouting, ' _Coran! Coran! The silliest man!'_ \- switching out the adjective with some other multi-sylable words when they got bored. _Prettiest_ and _Ditsiest_ were popular choices.   
  
Then there were the Shiro sized Allura's. Man, were they intense. They did not laugh. They did not smile. They DID scowl irritably at each other and at the little Allura's. And yelled. A. Lot. One got right up in Lance's face and _snarled_. Another sniffed at him disdainfully in the castle-ship corridors, where blue lights pulsed and doors opened and shut in three-quarter time.

Lance waltzed, following the doors until he reached a dark purple door that wouldn't open and just threw the whole shi-bang off.

“Rude,” his dream-self complained, and he woke up.

Lance stared at the ceiling of his room.

“Man what a trip,” he said, “I should tell Hunk, he'll get a kick out of that.”

Lance lay there and contemplated the ceiling. Hunk would definitely get a kick out of it, and so would Coran (to a point, at least. Did Alteans waltz?). He didn't think any one would like the first dream he'd had. Honestly, it was a bit too much for even him to swallow. Time travel? Please. Though, maybe Pidge would enjoy it from a technical point of view.

It had been oddly detailed though.

But whatever.

Lance sat up and swung his legs off the bed, searching for his fuzzy lion slippers.

“Ugh,” he got down on all fours to look under the bunk, “when did it get so dusty under here?”

Lance lay on his stomach and reached as far as he could. He was halfway beneath the bed when he was finally able to snag the slippers.

“Gotcha!”

“What are you doing, Lance?”

He jerked and smacked his head on the metal frame with a yelp

“Ow, damnit!” Lance wriggled and shimmied his way back out from the dusty hell-pit and waved his slippers at Shiro, “My slippers, man! And what the hell? Can't you knock?”

Maybe it was that the lighting was dim, or that Lance was still fuzzy from sleep, but Shiro looked more exhausted and older than ever.

“Dude, are you getting enough sleep? You look like crap. If you want, you can borrow one of my face masks,” he batted his slippers together to get the dust off them before he slipped them on, “Actually, you should just keep it. I don't want it back when you're done. One time use, el capitan. Shiro? You okay? Constipated? Seriously, you need to stop eating the Paladin Special, no matter what Coran says, as much as I love the guy – _oof!”_

Lance squirmed as Shiro pulled the teen close in a sudden hug that lifted him off the ground.

“Umm, Shiro?”

The Black Paladin began to laugh.

“Dude, are you okay?”

“Yea,” Shiro laughed, “I – I'm okay, Lance. Better than I've been in a long time.”

“That's great.” Lance managed to free an arm and sling it around his friends neck. He clung to it tightly, “because I don't think I'm okay. I just had _the_ worst dream.”

“Right.” Shiro seemed amused.

“Not funny, man. Also, where'd you get the new digs? Super soft,” he muttered into his brother-hero-space-dad's shoulder. Shiro hummed.

“Later, buddy,” he said, “right now, I need you to tell me the last thing you remember.”

“You mean, other than my super sucky dream?” Lance propped his chin on Shiro's shoulder since the man seemed to have no intention of letting him go, “I think I was in the cryo-replenisher...No, that was part of _the dream_. I was... I – I'm not. Not entirely sure, Shiro,” he said softly. “I remember is getting ready for that scouting mission to Bolatan. I know I went there. I know I came back, obviously, wouldn't be here otherwise – I just. Don't remember _how_.”

Shiro took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Lance,” he began softly, “buddy, tell me about your dream.”

“No. No, it was a stupid dream and it wasn't real,” Lance tightened his grip and was gratified when Shiro squeezed back, “ _it wasn't real_. Time travel's _not real._ ”

“Lance.”

“ _No!”_ he cried, voice thick with tears, “ _just no!_ Alteans might live hundreds of years, but _humans don't! If it was true, you should be dead!”_

“I can't deal with that,” Lance sobbed, “I can't deal with people I love dying when I'm not around again. I can't. I _can't. I can't.”_

They sank to the floor. Shiro cradled the lanky teenager in his lap as the tears flowed freely. He hummed and threaded his fingers through Lance's hair and marveled at the universe.

Finally, the deluge slowed to a trickle and Lance shifted in Shiro's lap. He felt empty and wrung out. There was no wind in his sails and no tide in space. He kept his head pressed to Shiro's chest and listened to his steady heartbeat. The fingers that passed through his hair were soothing.

“I turn one-hundred and twenty-six this year,” Shiro murmured, “I have a wife, children, and grandchildren.”

Lance stiffened.

“I wont lie to you and tell you that everyone survived because you deserve the truth,” he plunged on mercilessly, tightening his hold on the teen, “Some terrible things have happened, but life goes on, and we continue to pick ourselves up and fight back.”

“How do I know that I haven't been captured and this isn't some Druid trick?”

“What kind of proof would you need?”

“Blue.” Lance demanded, “I need Blue.”

Shiro sighed.

“She's on a mission. If you can wait a few more hours, they should be back by dinner.”

“That's just the thing an undercover Druid would say to keep me complacent,” Lance snorted.

“I'm pretty sure a Druid wouldn't even cradle 'dat boi' in their arms for any amount of time,” was the dry reply. Lance giggled. He slapped a hand over his mouth, but the neurotic sound continued to escape.

Shiro snickered.

“And I'm sure that a Druid wouldn't invite to you follow them around the castle-ship on a tour to meet everybody.”

“There is that.”

“Are you ready to get up now?”

“ _No._ ”

“Worse than my own children, Lance,” the man sighed, “Worse than my own children.”

“That is so strange,” Lance muttered, as a castle-ship full of mini-Shiro's paraded around shouting ' _Coran! Coran! The orangest man!'_ (with Coran at their head, tears flowing) floated through his minds eye.

“Says the kid cuddling his old-man friend 100 years in the future.”

Lance groaned.

“Don't remind me.”

...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think, please :)

**Author's Note:**

> Please, let me know what you think! :)


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